Personal computers have become everyday necessities for people conducting business and managing their lives, whether at the office, at home, or on the road. Many people now use more that one computer to conduct their everyday business, and individuals often do similar work on multiple computers (e.g., home, office, portable), some of which may even be publicly-accessible computers that any particular user accesses only once or infrequently (e.g., at airports, hotels, schools, libraries, and the like). People now often prepare material for a presentation on one or more computers and then store it on another computer for presentation to others at a different location.
Traditionally, users will save, backup, or copy computer files or data onto a storage device such as a diskette or CD-ROM. Certain computer program applications may be stored in a portable storage device and executed on a host device, and the program may or may not be copied and temporarily stored within the host device. More recently, portable storage devices such as pocket-sized USB (universal-serial-bus) flash memory devices (USB drives) have become increasingly popular for transferring (e.g., copying, moving, executing) files from one computer to another. When properly configured, such a portable storage device is functionally treated as an additional drive by the operating system of the host computer or host device to which the portable device is connected. The host computer then presents the portable device as an additional available storage location to the user for moving and/or copying files between drives. Such portable storage devices offer certain advantages over more dated portable storage media, such as magnetic or optical disks. They are generally small, typically approximately 1 inch by 3 inches by ½ inch (2.5 cm×7.5 cm×1.25 cm). They further provide increased speed and capacity as compared to older multi-track magnetic media such as diskettes or magnetic tapes, and are more resistant to physical breakage than optical devices such as CD-ROMs.
Portable external drives such as an external CD-ROM drive commonly used to supplement an ultra-compact laptop computer, are known but differ from portable storage devices in a fundamental way. Portable drives do not themselves include an intrinsic memory but rather read memory media such as an optical disk that is separately input by the user. The bulkiness of such portable drives and the need to carry additional storage media (especially when only one or two is typically needed when traveling) has limited consumer adoption of portable drives. In contrast, portable storage devices have an intrinsic memory and typically an intrinsic connector, so the bulkiness is reduced as well as the need for adaptor cords and additional media.
One drawback with the current methods of removing a portable storage device from a host device is that the user must manually intervene in a multi-step process before a portable device can be removed, generally requiring the user to interact with both the hardware and the operating system (OS) platform of the host device. For example, to remove a portable storage device from a host computer, the user first identifies the portable device to the host, requests permission to remove it (or commands the OS to remove it), and then awaits permission from the host device. Generally, multiple steps are required to even identify the portable device to the host computer.
The multi-step hardware/software task flow between host computer and portable storage device is additionally complicated by the in-the-background nature of how devices are typically integrated in the operating system. For example, before removing a portable storage device from a computer, a user of a Windows® based system must first locate and recognize the storage device in the OS via an abstract and small icon in the status tray or control panel on the computer screen, among other small icons representing other drives or programs. Then, the user typically follows several software dialogs before physically removing the portable storage device from the host computer. On occasion, a user might remove the portable storage device without OS permission, which can cause problems for the operating system.
For example, removing a portable storage device while the host is using a file on the portable device could cause lost data (e.g., a change was not saved) or a ‘hanging’ application, an operation moving a file may be interrupted leading to failure of the file moving and potential loss of data from the incompletely moved file, and an operating system of the host may not properly recover from a low power or ‘sleep’ state, requiring rebooting of the host computer. Where a portable device is repeatedly removed prior to the host device granting permission, power damage may occur to the portable device, its connector, and/or the connector receptacle on the host device, possibly requiring replacement of the damaged component.
An additional problem with portable storage devices that interface with a host computer via a USB or similar port is that current USB ports do not provide a physical retaining means or locking mechanism to prevent removal of the portable device before all software related transactions between the portable storage device and the host computer are complete. Older storage devices such as magnetic disks or tapes and CDs include retention means to physically prevent the user from removing the devices, enabling the OS to complete any file transfer and device/drive shutdown procedure prior to the user being allowed to remove the portable storage media or device. Whether inadvertently as where the user is unaware of computer on-screen warnings, or on purpose as where the user is unwilling to wait for permission from the host computer, the user may remove a portable device coupled to the host via a USB or similar non-locking connector prior to the host computer completing its normal shutdown tasks (e.g., transferring files, associated exchange of computer program instructions between the host computer and the portable device). The present invention is directed to streamlining the above multi-step process.